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Looking east - not west - for
employment
By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI - If you can't beat them, join them.
Faced with the prospect of unemployment due to the
outsourcing of jobs to low-cost economies, skilled
foreign workers from the United States and the United
Kingdom are doing the next best thing - seeking
employment in prime destinations such as India.
Prominent headhunters in New Delhi have
corroborated that over the past six months, several
inquiries have been received from top- and mid-level
executives from the US and the UK, exploring job
opportunities in top technology firms such as Wipro,
Infosys, Satyam and TCS, to name a few. This is apart
from regular middle and top-level management positions
in multinational companies such as IBM and General
Electric that have set up huge operations here.
"Lots of foreign nationals are looking at
mid-level and senior-level positions in India. Every
week, we get at least one well-qualified foreigner
looking for a job here," Kris Lakshmikanth, founder,
chief executive officer and managing director of
executive recruiting firm Head Hunters India, told
reporters on Monday. "As several IT [information
technology] product firms are setting up shop in India,
experienced professionals from the US are also on the
lookout for jobs here, and the trend is being witnessed
by the top-tier recruitment firms," he said.
The
movement of skilled manpower from India to Western
countries has been happening for decades. Doctors,
engineers, software professionals, nurses and teachers
have long been in demand given the international
shortage of such personnel. But the past couple of years
have witnessed several Indians in technology firms,
especially in California's Silicon Valley, headed back
home, consequent to job losses and recession in the US
market.
Indian firms with foreign arms have
hired foreign workers in their location of operation.
The Aditya Vikram Birla Group, for instance, has
recruited more than 72,000 employees in 20 different
countries. This is the first time, however, that reports
have emanated of foreign personnel willing to
translocate to India physically in search of work.
"Last year, it was Indians abroad who were
shifting to places like Bangalore. Since the last six
months, it is the foreigners - and all the top
recruitment firms are getting inquiries," said
Lakshmikanth.
The macro picture speaks for
itself - that outsourcing is a phenomenon likely to
stay, despite temporary voices of protest, linked more
to an election year in the United States than anything
else. According to a study by management-consulting firm
A T Kearney, financial-services companies are planning
to move more than 500,000 jobs overseas in order to
reduce operating costs by US$30 billion annually.
Global technology giant IBM expects to save $168
million annually, starting in 2006, by moving several
thousand high-paying programming jobs abroad, according
to internal company documents obtained by the Wall
Street Journal. IBM has said it plans to move up to
3,000 jobs from the US to developing countries this
year.
Estimates suggest that 200,000-400,000
jobs have moved from the US since the outsourcing trend
began in the 1990s, which is still a fraction of the 138
million jobs in that country. The Information Technology
Association of America says only about 2 percent of the
10 million computer-related jobs have been sent abroad;
12 percent of IT companies have "outsourced" work,
compared with 3 percent of non-IT firms. The most
high-end projection is by Forrester Research - a loss of
3.3 million jobs by 2015, including 1.7 million
back-office jobs and 473,000 IT jobs - which will create
a dent in the US job market and not the wreck everyone
fears.
But the story goes beyond just a
replication of hands at work. Experts say foreign
manpower, apart from pressure of job losses, is seeking
out India for the opportunities on offer and as an
attractive destination. This is because many leading
global technology firms have started to move
high-profile and highly skilled jobs to India, apart
from the many low-end call-center jobs that have already
shifted base to this country.
"Earlier only
call-center jobs were being outsourced to India," Anil
Mahajan, executive director of Talent Hunt Private Ltd,
was quoted by a news agency, "But now as companies start
to ship high-end research and senior managerial jobs too
to India, foreign workers see a huge opportunity for
themselves here. Till a few months back, we were getting
regular job queries from expatriate Indians who wanted
to move back to India. But we were also taken by
surprise when overseas professionals from countries as
far as the US, Britain and South Africa also started to
call us up to inquire about job opportunities here. This
has now become a trend," said Mahajan.
In the
past few years, most jobs outsourced sought to tap the
vast pool of English-speaking manpower in call centers
as well as back-end work for multinational companies.
The rapidly growing business and process outsourcing
(BPO) industry has virtually turned India into an
electronic housekeeper to the world, taking care of a
host of routine activities for multinational giants. In
order to cater to customers, a call center in New Delhi
has employed Finnish people to answer queries for a
leading travel portal in Europe, but such instances of
foreign employees have been few.
However, in
recent months, India has also seen the inflow of
research-and-development and high-end technology jobs
that have changed the picture. Inquiries are now coming
in from overseas professionals looking for these
openings at middle- and senior-level positions. The
inquiries have also been for Indian IT companies that
are operating on a truly global scale. Three of India's
IT companies - TCS, Wipro and Infosys - are already
racing to become billion-dollar entities. With
operations in dozens (if not more) of countries and
offices in scores of other locales, even the next 20 or
30 largest Indian software and services companies are
not too far behind.
Overseas professionals feel
comfortable working in these firms, as over the years
they have imbibed global practices that are inherent in
their operations now. As Indian companies continue to
expand operations worldwide, they have adapted their
management practices and strategies to compete in the
global marketplace. Until recently (even as recent as a
couple of years ago), most Indian software companies
employed Indians in key positions in global positions
around the world. An onsite posting or assignment was a
plum perk that the companies offered budding MBAs
(masters of business administration) and other
consultants wishing to move toward marketing or sales.
During the recent past, Indian companies have
begun to realize the significance of having local hands
in local markets and have started recruiting sales and
marketing people in local markets to represent them.
This has not only created a familiarity among foreign
workers about Indians and India, but has also acted as a
push to look for placements when the going is tough.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New
Delhi-based journalist.
(Copyright 2004 Asia
Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for
information on our sales and syndication policies.)
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